Evaluation of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope ratio measurement data for characterization of organically and conventionally cultivated spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) grain

Received: March 1st, 2021 ; Accepted: June 7th, 2021 ; Published: June 16th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] the growing interest of public in the quality of their consumed food, organic produce has been steadily gaining an important place in everyday menus of our society. The growing demand has boosted organic farming and we have also seen the price difference between organic products and their conventional counterparts. It is important to the public to have security, that the food labelled ‘organic’ has really been grown according to the good practices of organic farming and that it has not received any chemical pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers. Stable isotope ratios of crops from different crop management systems can help to answer these questions, as these values depend on the growing conditions, fertilizers used etc. In this study, 10 barley grain samples from conventional and organic crop management systems have been studied. Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotope ratios have been determined and the element content in the samples has been calculated. Student’s t-test has been performed to evaluate whether the differences between various parameters are significant. For potential clustering and discrimination of organic and conventional grains principal component analysis has been carried out. The PCA showed that no significant clustering can be observed, however the Student’s t-test for δ15N values confirmed that barley grown with green-manure fertilizers are significantly (p < 0.01) enriched with the heavier nitrogen isotope. Furthermore, it has been concluded that the total element content of carbon and nitrogen in barley grains does not correlate with the stable isotope ratios and cannot help with discriminating of these samples

The impact of crop management regime on oil content and fatty acid composition in hulless and covered spring barley

Received: November 11th, 2021 ; Accepted: January 30th, 2022 ; Published: March 17th, 2022 ; Correspondence: [email protected] are a minor nutritional component of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) grain and have not been as widely explored as the major components. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of genotype and environment, including conventional farming system with three crop management regimes, differing in agrochemical input, and organic farming system, on oil content and fatty acid composition in grain of two covered and four hulless spring barley genotypes during two growing seasons. Genotype significantly affected oil content and it was on average 4.26% and ranged in individual barley samples from 2.87 to 5.53%. We found linoleic, oleic, palmitic, α-linolenic, stearic and capric fatty acids in average proportions of 55.6; 21.3; 18.6; 3.7; 0.6 and 0.4%, respectively. Higher average oil content and proportion of α-linolenic acid was found in covered barley. Crop management regime did not significantly affect oil content but had some effect on the proportion of linoleic, α-linolenic, oleic and stearic acid. Decrease of chemical inputs was in favour of oil content and proportion of α-linolenic, oleic and stearic acids but did not promote linoleic acid. Waxy hulless barley line with high oil content and a very high proportion of linoleic acid was identified

Evaluation of morphological traits, genetic diversity and major resistance genes in barley subpopulations cultivated under organic and conventional farming systems

Received: March 13th, 2021 ; Accepted: June 21st, 2021 ; Published: September 6th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] crop varieties currently grown in organic conditions have been bred for conventional farming, and are not adapted to increased environmental variability under organic farming conditions and unpredictable environmental fluctuations due to climate change. This can be mitigated by the use of heterogeneous material, increasing genetic diversity and enabling adaptation to local conditions. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of several generations of cultivation in parallel under organic and conventional farming systems on the genetic diversity, morphological traits and frequency of major disease resistance genes as indicators of adaptation to the farming system in heterogeneous spring barley populations with differing levels of diversity. Populations in differing generations originating from crosses between two, three, 10 and 15 parental genotypes were cultivated in organic and conventional farming systems for three, four or 10 generations, thus forming subpopulations in each environment. These subpopulations were genotyped, and tested for morphological traits in both farming systems. A significant effect of cultivation environment on tillering capacity (p < 0.05) was found for all tested populations and in several cases for plant height, ear length and grain number per spike, indicating some adaptation trends. In the short term, genetic diversity parameters were not decreased in the later generation populations in comparison to the initial populations with the exception of observed heterozygosity, as expected for a self-pollinating species. No clear differences in genetic diversity parameters between populations cultivated under either organic or conventional condition for several generations were identified

A Joint Meeting of the EUCARPIA Section, Organic and Low-Input Agriculture, ECO-PB, LIVESEED, INSUSFAR, DIVERSify, HealthyMinorCereals, ReMIX, and Wheatamix University of Kassel, 19th–21st February 2018, Witzenhausen, Germany ; Abstract Booklet

This Symposium was financially supported by EUCARPIA and organised in collaboration with ECO-PB